If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

We don’t practice in order to get satori. It’s satori that pulls our practice. We practice, being dragged all over by satori.

You don’t seek the way. The way seeks you.

You study, you do sports, and you’re fixated on satori and illusion. So that even zazen becomes a marathon for you, with satori as the finish line. Yet because you’re trying to grab it, you’re missing it completely.

Only when you stop meddling like this does your original, cosmic nature realize itself.

You say you’re seeking the way, but what does it mean if you’re seeking the way just to satisfy yourself?

You want to become a buddha? There’s no need to become a buddha! Now is simply now. You are simply you. And tell me, since you want to leave the place where you are,where is it exactly you want to go?

Zazen means just sitting without even thinking of becoming buddha.

We don’t achieve satori through practice: practice is satori. Each and every step is the goal.

Don’t take pride in your practice. It’s clear that any satori you take pride in is a lie.

You’ve got it backwards if you talk about stages of practice. Practice is satori.

Satori is like a thief breaking into an empty house. He breaks in but there’s nothing to steal. No reason to flee. No one who chases him. So there’s nothing which could satisfy him either.

The buddha-dharma is immeasurable and unlimited. How could it ever have been made to fit into your categories.

No matter what you are grasping for, it’s limited.

In any case, only things for ordinary people can be grasped. Grasping for money, clinging to health, being attached to position and title, grasping for satori – everything you grasp only becomes the property of an ordinary person. Letting go of ordinary people’s property – that’s what it means to be a buddha.

When peace of mind only means your personal satisfaction, then it’s got nothing to do with the buddha-dharma.

The buddha-dharma teaches limitlessness. That which is measureless has to be accepted without complaint.

You lack peace of mind because you’re running after an idea of total peace of mind. That’s backwards. Be attentive to your mind in each moment, no matter how unpeaceful it might seem to be. Great peace of mind is realized only in the practice within this unpeaceful mind. It arises out of the interplay between peaceful and unpeaceful mind.

A peace of mind that is totally at peace would be nothing more than something ready made. Real peace of mind only exists within unpeaceful mind.

When dissatisfaction is finally accepted as dissatisfaction, peace of mind reigns. It’s the mind of a person who had been deaf to criticism when he finally listens to others talking about his mistakes. It’s the mind of a person who, naked and begging for his life, suddenly dies peacefully. It’s the mind of a person who has suddenly lost the beggar who had been pulling at his sleeve, relentlessly following him around everywhere,. It’s the mind after the flood in which the make-up of piety has washed away.

How could a human being ever have peace of mind? The real question is what you’re doing with this human life. What you’re doing with this stinking sack of flesh, that’s the issue.

the next time someone asks me why I sit Shikantaza, I'll probably just stay silent and link to the following video:

One could say I sit to become ever more intimate and at ease with that non-place whence happiness and sadness come from. Which is everywhere and always, beyond space and beyond time. HERE, inside and behind the eyes that read this.

the next time someone asks me why I sit Shikantaza, I'll probably just stay silent and link to the following video:

[video]

One could say I sit to become ever more intimate and at ease with that non-place whence happiness and sadness come from. Which is everywhere and always, beyond space and beyond time. HERE, inside and behind the eyes that read this.